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LAST STAND AT GOODBYE GULCH by Rex Benedict

LAST STAND AT GOODBYE GULCH

By

Pub Date: Nov. 18th, 1974
Publisher: Pantheon

Goodbye Gulch is back in Rex Benedict country, where the epic frontier straggle between outlaw and lawman has degenerated into a toothless, farcical ritual. This time the poor waif caught in the middle is the orphan Territory Gore -- when Mayor Bicker and the Reverend Bonely Scraggs deputize him to carry whiskey and hymnbooks to a dying man. And there's a gesture towards sexual equality (or romance, or something) in his teaming up with the melodious, resourceful Cherokee Waters, who's come to Goodbye Gulch to clear her Pappy's good name. Trouble is, if you've met these same loonies in the company of Good Luck Arizona Man (KR, 1972) and in the course of Goodbye To The Purple Sage (KR, 1973), by now their audacity will have worn thin. Even Benedict seems a little bored this time round, and his tall jokes, once marvelously convoluted, have grown as clattery as Marshall Dick Creel's false teeth.